“A minister resigns, good job to the new minister”. Giorgia Meloni comments without emotion on the departure of the Minister of Culture. However, feelings were at issue in this affair that embarrassed the Italian government at the end of the summer and agitated the ministry. Gennaro Sangiuliano handed his resignation into the hands of the President of the Council on Friday, September 6. Giorgia Meloni had previously refused it but the pressure was too great despite the mea culpa that she had imposed on her minister the day before.
Gennaro Sangiuliano had submitted to a session of public humiliation during the television news Rai 1. Sobbing, he admitted to having maintained “a romantic relationship” with Maria Rosaria Boccia, the influencer who accompanied him on almost all of his trips in recent months. He had considered appointing her as a consultant in charge of major events for free, before giving up on the promotion on August 26 and distancing himself from her. Disappointed, the 41-year-old woman has since flooded social networks with testimonies about their relationship.
The scandal had since continued to inflate the opposition and the media, demanding explanations on the cost that this relationship could have represented for the ministry’s budget. But the main concern remained the possibility that the minister’s mistress could have had access to files reserved in particular for the G7 Culture, which was to be held from September 18 to 20 in Pompeii before finally being moved to Naples.
During his televised exercise of contrition, the minister apologized to Giorgia Meloni and her collaborators for the embarrassment caused by the frivolity of his behavior. He also brandished his bank account statements to assure that he had personally paid all the expenses related to the various trips Maria Rosaria Boccia made with him, and that not a single public euro had been spent.
The humiliation of Gennaro Sangiuliano proved insufficient. His audacious companion gave numerous interviews to the press, providing proof that she had had access to confidential documents. She confirmed that she had even recorded certain conversations in the palaces of power using a camera hidden in her glasses. Finally, she insinuated that the minister could be subject to blackmail. A possibility that puts the credibility of the government as a whole at stake.
Giorgia Meloni has thus decided to sacrifice her minister. A first within her executive and this less than two weeks before the G7 of Ministers of Culture that Italy is chairing this year. A successor to Gennaro Sangiuliano was immediately appointed. He is again a former journalist: Alessandro Giuli born in 1975. Since October 2022 he has held the position of president of the MAXXI Foundation, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome. Just as comfortable on television sets as his predecessor, this former great writer of the liberal-conservative daily The Foglio and polemicist nevertheless displays a much more sober style.
